BUILDING UP AND OUT

October 2, 2011
Pentecost 16
Exodus 20:1-21
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

(prayer)

When Jacob and his family first moved to Egypt to join Joseph during a time of severe famine, they were nothing more than a large extended family. The land they had left had not been in the family very long. It was Jacob’s grandparents Abraham and Sarah who first ventured into Canaan and settled there: to a land that God had promised would be theirs – a land where their descendants would live.

Grandson Jacob’s land acquisitions were do, mostly, to his in-laws. When Jacob married both of the daughters of Laben, and began to raise a large family, he became very established and possessed a large estate in Canaan. During the famine, when they moved to Egypt, they left relatively little history of their presence in the Promised Land.

The covenant between God and Abraham was that ‘Yahweh would be Abraham’s God and that Abraham’s descendants would be Yahweh’s people’.

When the Jacob-clan arrived in Egypt they were just one family – a large family spanning three or four generations – but not a nation.

But more than blood bound them – they held to the promise that Yahweh was there God and that they were destined to be a nation living in Canaan.

That resolve was passed on to the generations of Jacob-ites born and raised in Egypt. For many, many years this family lived good lives in their adopted homeland; they intermarried with other people in the area and over hundreds of years grew in numbers. Because they maintained a common faith and history and culture, they could eventually be identified as a distinct people living in Egypt. They were called the people of Israel, taking that title from Jacob’s nickname. Even after a Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites, they maintained a unity.

When Moses went to this pharaoh and demanded “let my people go” – they were a nation! Moses knew it and pharaoh knew it.

As they set out on the long journey to return to Canaan, they brought with them their history, their culture and their faith – what they didn’t have was a sense of what life would be like once they settled in Canaan.

Today’s reading from the Exodus 20 is one of the most well known passages in all of scripture. People may not be able to quote it verse for verse, but most everyone has heard of the ten commandments and I suspect that many people could even name a few of them.

The Ten Commandments summarize God’s rules for living: we begin by honouring our relationship with God: that is the essence of the first three commandments. For the Israelites, it was blood and faith that united them from the beginning of their time together in Egypt. Faith is where it all starts.

The next commandment invites the people to honour a Sabbath rest. Exodus justifies this commandment by making reference to Genesis chapter one – Creation involved God labouring for six days and then resting. The command to honour the Sabbath day and to keep it holy is to match our rhythms with God’s rhythms - to see our lives within the context of the creation of which we are a-part.

The final six commandments invite the people to live in such a way that their relationships with others reflect God’s relationship with them.

Other than honouring one’s parents, the final commandments are phrased using negative wording: but they all have an implied positive command:

6. You shall not murder.

Support the living.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

Honour marriage.

8. You shall not steal.

Work honourably for what you need.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

Tell the truth.

10. You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Be satisfied with what you have.

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The Ten Commandments are the summary of how the people of Israel are to live as a nation for their journey to Canaan and for the life they are to have in Canaan. They form the centre of what is called the Torah – the Law, for the Israelite people.

The Ten Commandments do not stand alone – the next three chapters in Exodus includes a narrative where God details for Moses some specific practical examples of how this Torah was to be lived out. Moses later is said to have written all of these ordinances down – it was known as the Book of Covenant.

But this is still not the totality of the Law. The biblical book of Deuteronomy is basically a law book – with specific rules for specific situations. The book of Leviticus is a collection of rituals and practices for worship.

The tradition would eventually evolve to see the full contents of what would become the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) as The Torah (The Law). It is interesting that much of the text of the first five books (also called the Pentateuch: meaning ‘five books’) are the stories of the people’s lives and journeys – Abraham’s journey to Canaan, Jacob’s journey to Egypt, Moses and the freed Israelite’s journey through the wilderness and back to Canaan. The Torah (The Law) is more the rules – it contains the life lived by the people.

The rules, the commandments, provide the base on which the faith is built up and lived out!

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So let’s examine how many commandments were broken in Jesus’ parable the vineyard owner and the tenants. We have to assume that the lease agreement that the tenants had with the owner included that the owner was still entitled to some of the grapes and/or wine produced in his fields.

So, broken commandments…

• There’s lying (not living up to the lease contract);

• And coveting (obsessively wanting what belongs to someone else);

• That coveting lead (in effect) to stealing what belonged to the owner;

• And of course, murder – multiple times – a minimum of six people were killed by the wicked tenants.

But Jesus’ parable is not really about the conflict between a landowner and some tenants, nor the breaking these specific commandments. The story is a metaphor – it is about faithful, authentic living.

The 21st chapter in Matthew’s gospel is the start of Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem leading up to his crucifixion. The chapter starts with the Palm Sunday narrative. Jesus is out of his normal setting (the wilderness, the lakeside) – he is on the turf of the establishment – at the seat of political and religious power in the land. And he is not willing to go quietly into the night. It is time to speak up for what is right and just!

Last week (if you were here) we read a debate about authority that Jesus had with pharisaic elders and temple priests. Jesus openly challenged their hypocrisy for their opposition to John the Baptist.

Today, these same religious leaders are (not so subtly) compared to lying, murderous thieves. The are spot-lighted for having rejected the owner’s expectations, even rejecting the owner’s son – (and then, because Jesus and the gospel writers love to mix their metaphors) the priests and elders are accused of ignoring the rock that truly belongs as the cornerstone!

Jesus is not accusing them of actual murder or coveting – he is accusing them of breaking the totality of the Torah – they are not truly honouring God, because they are un-interested in the full story of the people.

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The Ten Commandments – the centre of God’s Law – are all instructions to avoid dispassionate selfishness. The first commandments are to love and worship Yahweh alone. [Next week, we get to hear how the Israelites broke those commandments even while Moses was still up on the mountain with God.] The other commandments (remember them in their positive forms: honour parents and marriage, support life, be happy with what you have and get what you need in honourable ways) [these other commandments] are all about how we treat others – we are always motivated by a measure of selfishness or greed when we break these commands. The way we live our lives (in the context of our relationships with the rest of God’s creation) is important.

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No one lives a mistake-free life. We learn how best to live sometimes, by finding ourselves over an edge. There is not one of us who could claim to have religiously lived up to the Ten Commandments. Now, I’m not accusing you of being murders or thieves, but, come on: lying? coveting? truly keeping sabbath?

We’ve all done it.

And sometimes, I suspect that many of us have ignored the place of God in our lives.

The Torah, the Commandments are life lessons and are before us as goal throughout our lives.

The apostle Paul in his prison letter to the faithful few in Philippi notes that he has an impressive, faithful, law-abiding résumé. And yet, he sees himself as being in need of a greater faith – he describes his life as a race – he is heading toward the goal, but he cannot stop because that goal is still before him. Later after his death (in a letter of instruction to a future generation of Christian leaders) Paul will be eulogized as one who “fought the good fight…finished the race…kept the faith.” (Second Timothy 4:7)

But here in the letter to the Philippians, Paul encourages others (through his words and example) to ‘press on’ for a deeper relationship with God through Christ. Paul’s example shows that this is not just prayer and activities of the self, but also service and love and compassion in our dealings with others. As it was in the day of Moses, the Law is more than rules – it is the story of a people – including the lessons they learn along the way from breaking a rule or two.

How do we get away with that?

How does Paul get away with out-right persecution of Christians before his conversion?

How do Aaron (Moses’ brother) and the Israelites get away with worshipping a golden calf in strict violation of Commandment #2?

[more on that next week]

How do we get away with our mistakes and even our egregious, intentional strayings from a path of righteousness?

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Grace. That’s how.

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We are a people of a gracious, forgiving God. Grace is God’s faith in us. That we can be the people we are created to be. God loves us and love is patient and kind – love never ends. Grace is our gift from God. It is God’s one commandment to follow – I will be their God and they will be my people! We build our faith up and out from there.

Thanks be to God.



Let us pray:

Gracious God;

Carry us on a journey where we seek deeper a relationship with you, with others and your creation. Help us to follow in Jesus’ loving and accepting ways. Amen.



**OFFERING**